Ben Bernanke, C.E.O.

When it comes to the United States economy, they are the two most important government officials and they both have bald domes, but otherwise it would be hard to confuse the two.

They are Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, the tall former investment banker, and Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke, the nebbishy academic. For a brief moment during Bernanke's appearance today before the House Budget Committee there was some confusion, however.

Representative Marcy Kaptur, a Democrat from northern Ohio, in questioning Bernanke about the securitization of mortgages, noted that he was the former chief executive of Goldman Sachs.

Laughter in the committee room interrupted her question.

"Did I get the wrong firm?" she asked, before realizing that she had confused him with Paulson, who last appeared before the committee nearly a year ago.

Bernanke said, with a slight smile: "I was chief executive of the Princeton economics department."

He could have said that he was chief executive of the most important central bank in the world, but Bernanke is far too modest and circumspect for that.

And while Bernanke has had experience in managing people and dealing with bureaucracy in his university and government jobs, he has missed out in his career one crucial aspect of being C.E.O.: the rich payday.

Paulson was paid $38 million in his last year as chief executive of Goldman Sachs. Now, the Treasury Secretary and the Fed chairman receive government salaries of around $185,000 a year.

Jeffrey Cane